Come be the church with us as we spend time together at a variety of events and services during this Holy week.

Passion Week Services & Events:

1. Christian Mini-Seder: Thursday evening, 2nd April, 8:00-9:00pm under the tent. Come and sit around a Bedouin table with the whole family and experience samples of a Passover meal with explanations of meanings from a Christian perspective.

2. Good Friday Service 3rd April 5:00~6:15pm will include a special communion celebration with the Cross.

3. Eggstraordinary Easter Egg Hunt Outreach: Great Outreach Opportunity!Join us on Saturday, 4th April, 9:00-11:00am (even if you don’t have kids) to mix and mingle as the kids hunt for their Easter treasures. Ages 7 and under will start from 9:15am sharp. Ages 8 and up will start from 10:00am sharp.

Eggs are filled with American candy! Tickets for the hunt are now on sale LE 25 at the Connection Point booth or church office. Breakfast is also available for purchase at the BCA.

4. Easter Sunday Resurrection Celebration: On Sunday, 5th April at 7:00-8:15pm. Celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus in a rousing multi-cultural worship service under the tent.

The MCC Young Adults will be hosting a movie night on March 13th after the service. We’ll meet on the 2nd floor (Widener Wing) to watch The Good Lie starring Reese Witherspoon. It’s about Sudanese refugees given the chance to resettle in America arrive in Kansas City, Missouri. There, their encounter with an employment agency counselor forever changes all of their lives. Bring some money for food and a drink to share! Don’t forget to invite a friend to this fun event!

Healing Grace Ministries trip Saturday, 21st March from 8:00am-6pm to Abo Gilban village (north of Minya). We will once again visit families in the village MCC supports and see the physical, emotional, and spiritual work being done to change lives, and let God work in your heart as well! Cost for transportation is LE 100, AND you will need to bring your own lunch and snacks. Sign up at the Connection Point booth, or you can email Elias at mcc.dev.out@gmail.com for more information.

Annual “Potluck Brunch” on Friday, 13th March from 10:30am-whenever in various homes in smaller gatherings of 6-10. Bring your favorite breakfast/lunch dish to share. Sign up now at the Connection Point booth to host or attend, or call the church office at 2359-2755 Monday through Thursday. This is a great way to connect with others as we “Be the Church”!

Lent is the period preceding Easter, which is most often associated with fasting and abstinence in commemora-tion of Christ’s fasting in the wilderness. In the Western Church it runs from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday,and so includes forty weekdays. If you’re like most, Lent is not perhaps something that you are entirely familiarwith, as most Protestant churches do not observe it. Many of us hear the word “lent” and think of giving some-thing up, an exercise in deprivation. But Lent is not about scarcity; it’s about preparing us for more. It is aboutcreating the opportunity for worship to happen.

An example that might help you to understand what we mean is the idea of going to sleep. Literally, there isnothing physically we can do to make ourselves sleep, but we can create the environment where sleep can happen…comfy bed, warm blanket, ocean wave sound machine, etc. As we train our bodies to relax in this environment, sleep comes.

So, with Lent, the idea is to look at this as an exercise of discipline, that we create the environment where encountering God can happen through the shifting away from the world through fasting, and mindfully preparingour hearts to meet with the Lord. THIS is why we wanted to write a devotional book for the Lenten season and what we hoped youwill get out of it.

The word liturgical means the work of the people. A pastor can only do so much, but a congregation must meethim somewhere to be engaged in the worship. Worship is not a passive process, where one simply receives, butwhere one also spurs on others to help encourage growth. We can all look at the same passage of scripture, andthrough our own unique encounters with the Lord and our personal histories, each of us would have a differentperspective on the very same passage. Sharing those unique perspectives is what stimulates growth within thebody. The writers of this devotional have all been part of the Maadi Community Church family; though somehave moved on to new locations, we are all still connected being part of the same family of Christ.

We have divided the weeks into seven key words, themes that explore what God’s Word does in our lives, congregations, and world. In God’s Word we see where he creates, calls, commands, saves, sustains, shapes, and sends,and thus, our seven themes represent each of these bigger ideas of what God’s Word can accomplish in our lives.

Each week will begin on a Sunday, with a day of rest and reflection. Please take the time to read about theweek’s theme and meditate on what that might mean in your life.

The remaining six days are composed of devotionals and questions to think about for that day. There is a specialfamily devotion each week where the activity and questions are geared towards engaging the entire family(though this can easily be done each for each day anyway).

We hope and pray that you are able to prepare your hearts and meet the Lord in a time of sweet worship duringthese next few weeks. Share your experiences with us on our Facebook page and let us know how we can encourage and pray for you.

The Lenten Devotional booklet is for sale at MCC for 10Le. which covers the cost of printing.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CHECK OUT OUR FB PAGE at
www.facebook.com/maadicommchurch